Rollerblading with Shiner

I’ve started rollerblading with Shiner (our dog). Since we got Dish Network, we’ve been watching a lot of Dog Whisperer – the show with Cesar Millan.  He is always talking about releasing the dogs energy and one of the examples we have seen him do to release dog’s energy is to go rollerblading with the dog and the owners. 

When it starts getting closer to bedtime, Shiner starts running around the apartment with a squeaky toy and we figure it has to drive the downstairs neighbor mad.  I usually try to stop her when she starts running around, but that probably keeps all her energy pent up in her.  Instead of just stopping her from running around, we decided to start helping her release some of that energy by taking her out rollerblading.

I got a cheap set of rollerblades ($35) from the store and my legs got tired really fast and my ankles hurt really bad when we were done.  I did a little research on inline-skates and decided to go back and try on a few more pairs.  I tried on a better sized version of the cheap skates, some $60 skates, and ended up going with the $90 FILA skates. Even though they are about 3 times as expensive as the first set of skates I bought, I feel like I’m getting a much better value out of these skates since I actually want to go skating on them now.

Back to the dog: she really loves rollerblading – especially when we first get outside. She’s really good about staying by our side and when we get to a flat piece of land I sometimes let her try to pull me. She’s only about 50 pounds, so unless she has some motivation (like a squirrel to chase after), she wont really pull me. By the end of the run it’s typically the other way around. I find myself pulling Shiner along to get her to make it home. We try to not take her out during the middle of the day because it’s pretty hot here and she tires out pretty fast. But even during the night on a long run she’ll start to tire out toward the end of the run.

When we first started taking her out skating everyone in the complex was kind of amazed by it. It’s pretty funny to hear all the comments from people and I never thought they would be so amazed by it. Shiner loves it and it does wear her out.  We usually take her for a few runs a day during the weekend and take her out once (sometimes twice) a day during the week.